Himachal Congress comes out with jumbo state unit

Shimla, Sep 10 (IANS) With an eye to the Lok Sabha elections, the Congress high command has come out with a jumbo Himachal Pradesh Congress Committee, with former chief minister Virbhadra Singh’s supporters in majority. The All-India Congress Committee (AICC) has tried to please all by giving representation to sitting and former legislators, women and youth.

The new list has 88 office-bearers, including eight vice-presidents and an equal number of general secretaries.

“To imbibe new spirit in the state committee, we have tried to give due representation to all sections - from veteran leaders to youth members. Our aim while finalising names was that no section or group feels let down,” state Congress chief Kaul Singh Thakur told IANS Wednesday.

Senior state leaders like Virbhadra Singh, Sukh Ram, Vidya Stokes, Chandresh Kumari, Sat Mahajan and Anand Sharma are in the executive, which has 44 members.

Kin of senior leaders have also been included in the new team.

They include Ajay Mahajan, son of Sat Mahajan, Anil Sharma, son of former telecom minister Sukh Ram, and Aishwarya Katoch, son of former minister Chandresh Kumari.

This time there are seven women office-bearers.

While Satya Prakash Thakur, Ajay Mahajan and Kuldeep Rathore have been retained as general secretaries, four new faces B.D. Chaudhary, Mukesh Agnihotri, Sudhir Sharma and Sukhwinder Singh, have also been inducted. Former minister Asha Kumari also finds place among the general secretaries.

However, former minister and now legislator G.S. Bali failed to find favour in the reconstituted Congress committee.

During the Congress government, Bali was in the thick of controversy for dancing with “call girls” on his birthday party. After this controversy, he was forced to resign as the transport minister.